𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟭-𝟰. „For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were immersed into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.”

 

Everyone was given the same privilege and honor, but…

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭:𝟱-𝟲. „Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did.”

 

Not he who began well, but he who endured to the end will be able to eat the fruit of his faith. Paul condemned the Israelites for their desire for evil. Paul explains to us further:

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟳. „Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.””

 

Paul quotes from the book of Exodus. Let’s see how this sin came about.

 

𝗘𝘅𝗼𝗱𝘂𝘀 𝟯𝟮:𝟰-𝟲. „And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.”

 

We see that despite the calf, Aaron directs us to the worship of YHWH, as if to say that this calf symbolizes God who brought them out of the land of Egypt. And yet the people sin by eating, drinking, and being merry. They offer burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, meaning that some of the offerings are not burned but eaten together. Some translators call these sacrifices fellowship offerings. Pagans also offer this type of offering and eat them later or sell them cheaply to the poor. In this case, however, the Hebrews do as God instructed them earlier. In the same book of Exodus, but earlier, we read:

 

𝗘𝘅𝗼𝗱𝘂𝘀 𝟮𝟬:𝟮𝟰. „An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you.”

 

It turns out that the Israelites are making sacrifices, and even eating them, as God has desired. So what is the problem? Why is God angry with them? Because they are doing it for the calf, and even calling on the name of YHWH does not change the fact that it is idolatry. It is not enough to know who you are referring to, you must also carefully choose how you worship God.

 

This example is also a warning to those who pray before a statue or image. The explanation that it is just a symbol that helps in prayer, but in fact we pray not to the statue but to God, is not serious, as evidenced by the above example. It is obvious that the Hebrews did not consider the statue to be God, but considered it a symbol. They clearly emphasized that they worshiped the God who led them out of Egypt. They could boldly argue that there are no other gods, there is only one and they worshiped him. Such an argument would be meaningless, because they did something that God had forbidden them. It is the same today with prayers that use images, they are idolatry.

 

This example of eating, drinking, and merrymaking is especially important for us in the context of celebrating Christmas Eve or Easter. Paul will return to the peace offerings in a moment. Before he does, he lists other sins of Israel:

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟴-𝟭𝟮.”We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”

 

These failures were prophetic in nature, that is, they foreshadowed similar apostasies in the future. So we should not be surprised when we recognize similar cases of worship given to God, but actually to someone else. Paul will explain in a moment who receives this wrongly addressed worship.

 

This was written so that we would be wiser and not make the same mistakes. We are to be careful not to be deceived into thinking that we are partakers of salvation when through idolatrous error we are doomed to destruction.

 

In the following words we find Paul’s explanation. I present it in two translations of my own authorship. The first is literal, the second contextual.

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟭𝟴-𝟮𝟯. „Look at Israel according to the flesh. [Do] they not eat sacrifices, being participants in the altar? Why do I say this? Because [is] an idol sacrifice is something or an idol is something? All that they sacrifice, to demons and not to God. But I do not want you to be participants with demons. You are not able to drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You are not able to eat [at] the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Do we provoke the Lord? No, because [are] we stronger than him? Everything [is] lawful, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is lawful, but not everything edifies.”

 

Contextual translation:

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟭𝟴-𝟭𝟵. „Look at the example of fleshly Israel. Do they not become partners in the altar, eating the offerings on it? Why did I use this example? Does the offering to an idol and the idol itself have any value? On the contrary.”

 

Since you eat the sacrifice from the altar, you become a partner of the altar and of course of other people taking part in this ceremony. Paul does not want to raise the importance of sacrifices offered to false gods, but shows that the principle is identical among pagans. In this translation I used the word idol, because this word exists in Polish and is of Greek origin, i.e. this is the first and basic meaning of this word. Hiding it in Polish translations using synonyms such as idol and snowman unnecessarily distracts from the basic meaning of this word. This leads to the fact that even Christian youth make declarations such as: My idol is… Unconsciously they elevate people to the rank of deity and make a declaration of faith in a man, musician, actor or other celebrity. In further words Paul reveals who those who address their prayers or sacrifices incorrectly really worship:

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟮𝟬. „What they offer with God in mind, they actually offer to demons. I do not want you to become partners with demons.”

 

So, although there is no other God in the full sense of the word, there are demons and they receive worship that is misdirected. Therefore, the Israelites, when they made a calf, were worshipping some demon that the calf represented. There was no justifying significance in the fact that the Israelites clearly said that they meant the God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, nor even in using the name YHWH. The calf stood between the true God and their sacrifice. Similarly, people make the mistake of using a name that does not belong to God and our Lord Yeshu. It also stands between God and the Lord and their prayers.

 

𝟭 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗮𝗻𝘀 𝟭𝟬:𝟮𝟭-𝟮𝟯. „You cannot drink from the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot eat at the table of the Lord and at the table of demons. Would we like to provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he is? Everything is lawful, but not everything is beneficial. Although everything is lawful, not everything is edifying.”

 

Great prudence is needed, because as the Polish proverb says, „the devil is in the details”. Theoretically, we are allowed to do anything, because we do not have the law written on paper or on stone tablets, but in our hearts. However, the lack of written and detailed laws does not mean that everything is good and worth recommending. We have received examples from antiquity for this purpose, so that with the help of our conscience we can avoid idolatry, also through religious feasts. Satan still uses the same methods and they have been revealed to us. The book of Revelation also provides us with valuable advice regarding religious feasts:

 

𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮:𝟭𝟰-𝟭𝟲. „But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.”

 

Balaam persuaded Israel’s pagan neighbors to bring them to feasts, where they ate food offered (dedicated) to false gods and also committed immorality. The prophetic equivalent of these events turned out to be 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐬 and his followers. The name Nicolaitans comes from the Greek name Nikolaos. They were Christians who maintained contact with pagans at feasts and on this occasion ate food offered to idols, and also engaged in immoral contacts. On the occasion of Christmas, Saint 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐬 appears with a long gray beard, red clothes and a sack of presents. Since the Polish church recognizes the equivalents of names, it calls him Saint Nicholas. However, there are countries where the original name has remained.

 

So we have the story of Balaam recorded for our instruction, who for money caused the Israelites to sin, one of the methods of deception was religious feasts. Later, the prophetic fulfillment turned out to be the customs introduced by the Nicolaitans, or followers of Nicholas. This second deception continues to this day and is also accompanied by a religious feast in honor of the god who was born. Only, the true God was not born on Earth. The Son of God was born as a man and placed great emphasis on his humanity. So if Christ was not God at the moment of his birth, which god is worshiped on Christmas Eve? We know from history that different Gods with different names were born on the night of December 24-25. This was connected with the worship of the sun, because from then on the day became longer and longer.

 

𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒑 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒓𝒚.